"THE WEARY TITAN."

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 73, 19 December 1907, Page 7

"THE WEARY TITAN."

BRITAIN'S NAYAI BURDEN. MEASURED ON POPULATION BASIS. ITS CRUSHING WEIGHT. MORE DEPENDENCE ON LAND FORCES BT lELEGEAPH—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COI'TRIGHT. (Rec. Dec. 18, 10.10 p.m.) London, December 18. Mr. Haldane, Minister for War, in flio course of a speech at Hanley (Staffordshire), said the time might come when it would not be so easy as it is to-day to maintain the two-Power Standard in the Navy. Mr. Haldane added:— " Ccrmany has a population of nearly sixty millions to our fortyfour millions, and the United States will soon have a population of one hundred millions. It will be very hard for us with forty-four millions to maintain the two-Power standard against two nations with a combined population of one hundred and sixty millions. " We may not be able in the days to come to depend wholly and absolutely on the Navy with the completeness with which we depend on it to-day, and, should that time arrive, it will be on the home defence forces that we will have to rest our trust." The two-Power standard, according to Lieut. Carlyon Bellairs, M.P., a naval authority, has been defined by successive Cabinets to mean that "the annual shipbuilding programme should be framed so as to give the British Navy a margin of superiority over the two strongest naval . Powers in tho number of officiont armoured ships intended to be used as battleships, together with euch a superiority in the number of efficient cruisers as will enable them adequately to perform their work as scouts, look-out vessels, and commerce defenders in a war with the two strongest naval i Powers."